Surpasses Goldeneye and pushes the N64 to its limits! You'll be stunned by what this game can do! Deserving of a ten!
From the same people that made that other classic shooter comes another first-person shooter. Enter Perfect Dark. The pinnacle of Nintendo 64 gaming.
The story follows Joanna Dark in her missions as an agent of the Carrington Institute. Her awesome scores in training earned her the nickname "Perfect" Dark. You wouldn't want to play as anyone else, would you? What starts as an investigation into rival corporation dataDyne moves on to larger and more important missions, including Area 51 and stopping the assassination of the President, until eventually you find yourself completing missions on alien spaceships.
Often touted as the 'spiritual successor' of Goldeneye, Perfect Dark boasts an incredible range of features and improvements that help make it a thoroughly enjoyable experience for veterans and novices of the genre alike. There's so much to mention I don't know where to start!
Your controls are typical of a FPS, with a few differences. For starters, there is a massive range of weapons to play with. Made even bigger by the fact that each weapon has a secondary firing mode, ranging from proximity self-destruct, to a charged up shot, to sniping mode - there's even a gun that transforms into a briefcase, which can be used as a sentry! Brilliance in a bottle. There's even adrenalin for fans of slow-mo action. For the die-hard weapons fan, you can take a trip down to the firing range to prove your prowess with every weapon in existence. Gold will unlock some wonderful presents, and we all love presents.
The level designs have great variety. In addition to storming buildings and installations, there's a villa, alien spaceships, airport and aeroplane missions, outdoors fun, and even a mission in the Carrington Institute. Objectives range from rescuing someone, to obtaining data, escaping, or seek and destroy, so although the plot is linear, the game makes up for this with variety. There's a good selection of enemies too, some of which aren't human. Some levels are so vast you'll get lost. Which is a good thing in my book, it adds to the realism.
The music will get you pumped, and the graphics hold true, considering the platform, even though characters are still notably chunky. Enemies will yell out to their comrades, and tend to fallen mates with such comments like "I never liked him anyway", or "NOOOOOO!" Their AI is pretty good, and they can be a challenge on harder difficulties, simply because of their increased health and damage output. That, and the fact that when they decide to hit, they'll all move in on you at once. Oh, and did I mention they love to run to the alarms at the drop of a hat? Yea, that can be a problem.
The human enemies can be hilarious when you listen to all the stuff they say, and also serves as a bit of comic relief from the stress of some of the harder levels. As with Goldeneye, a series of cheats can be unlocked by completing levels within a set time limit, but only for levels with a target time. As an added bonus, there is a piece of cheese hidden on every level. See if you can find these holey treasures! They won't be easy, and there's no reward, but they're pretty funny. There are actually several glitches that were put in the game deliberately, for fun. In addition to cheese, rewarding cheats and glitches, there are bonus levels to unlock, putting you in the shoes of some of the game's more prominent characters. There are three difficulties - once they're all complete you'll have access to the customisable fourth difficulty level, much the same as there was in Goldeneye.
But so far all I've told you is from the single player aspect of the game. There is a variety of multi-player games to choose from as well. Play two players at once in the single-player story, with the second player cast as Joanna's sister. This can be either Co-operative or Counter-operative play. Or you can play in the Combat Simulator.
The Combat Simulator is the single best multi-player feature I've ever seen in a game. Not that I like to play multi-player very often, but the Simulator steals the show. Not only can you play a four-player game with your mates, but you can take on a bunch of simulants (computer controlled characters), up to eight at once! The best thing is you can adjust practically every setting! Weapons, sim difficulty, the level you're in, you name it, you can play with it. Even what you look like! Didn't like how the aliens looked in the game? Why not put one in a tuxedo! Genius.
But while you can play up to twelve characters in one mini-game, it's not something you'll do very often, or, perhaps, enjoy the most. The big problem, friends, is frame rate. It suffers the most in multi-player, as the game renders scenes separately for each player. A large number of simulants on the screen at once doesn't help either.
Regardless, taking on the simulant horde can be fun too. Modes include: the traditional death-match, with the option of teams; capture the case; hold the briefcase; king of the hill; hacker central; pop a cap - all of which are pretty self-explanatory to seasoned players. There are also thirty set challenges, which afford more goodies to unlock, this time for multi-player. Players can check on their 'profile' in multi-player, showing total statistics - including your rank, which is determined by various factors. Each of the 21 ranks has its own title, from Beginner to Perfect. It'll take you a while to get all these!
So for a game on the Nintendo 64, there is plenty to keep players busy. Once again Rare delivers a remarkable gaming experience - a new and sexy heroine is even better. Director of Perfect Dark, Martin Hollis, said there "should be more games centred on women". Miss Dark is a welcome sight in a world of first-person shooters dominated by male protagonists.